“He hasn’t got anywhere to go for his work experience in the summer,” said the housemate’s son-in-law pointing at her nearly 16 year old grandson.

“He was holding out for somewhere he could drive go-karts all day but strangely enough nothing came up,” he added rolling his eyes.

“So we were hoping he could maybe come and work with you for a few days. He’s only got to do three because he’s hiking in the Malvern Hills for his Duke of Edinburgh award at the end of the week,” he added, clearly hoping that would swing it.

“Yes of course he can,” replied the housemate without hesitation, clearly relishing the chance to have him on hand to spoil rotten for an extended period.

“Of course you’re welcome to come,” slightly concerned I might have overstated how exciting the life of a regional editor actually is.

“We can pick him up on our way home from our weekend in Liverpool and then you can pick him up from Ross on Wednesday,” she said to her son-in-law with her organising brain in overdrive.

“Will I have to get up early?” asked the 16-year old in full teenager mode as we drove him down to Abergavenny on Sunday night

“You will because tomorrow we’re doing to a town council drop-in session in Lydney in the Forest of Dean,” I replied.

“What do we do there?” he said, slightly concerned at the thought of meeting councillors and the town mayor.

“We’re just there to chat to anyone who wants to come to see us about a story and to catch up with the councillors about any stories they have,” I explained. “I’m only doing this today because one of the reporters is on holiday.”

“I don’t know how many people will turn up this morning,” said the Mayor of Lydney as we arrived at the town hall.

“Sometime we have loads of people and sometimes nobody comes,” she added.

Two hours later we concluded it was going to be one of the ‘nobody comes’ mornings and began to pack up our kit.

“What do we do now?” asked my slightly bemused work shadow.

“We go back home so I can pick up some of the sports stories we need to use. I have to do that because the sports editor is on holiday,” I replied.

“ I know one of your favourite subjects in school is statistics so I thought you could help me out by going through my video charts and helping me put together my report for tomorrow’s editors’ meeting,” I said.

Two minutes later he’d finished the task which normally takes me much longer.

“You may as well go an let Nanna feed you with cake,” I said as he handed over the piece of paper.

Later that evening I heard him chatting to his sister on the phone.

“I think Liz only does stuff when other reporters are off work,” he said. “Largely she does diddly squat!”